As microelectronic devices get increasingly smaller, new problems with fabricating the devices appear. For example, as the device sizes decrease, an increasingly greater number of contacts to the device need to be made within an increasingly smaller contact area. The number of contacts within a given surface area of an integrated circuit is generally referred to as the contact density. Obviously, as the contact density of the integrated circuit increases, so to will the contact density of the associated packaging for the integrated circuit tend to increase.
This situation of increasing contact density tends to create difficulties in providing the number of contacts required in a manner where signal integrity through the contacts is maintained. Further, routing the signals through the contacts to the package presents additional challenges as the contact density increases.
What is needed, therefore, is a ball assignment for a ball grid array package and an associating routing structure for an associated printed circuit board that is capable of handling the high contact count within a relatively limited contact area and in a manner where signal integrity is maintained.